


The Body Swap

by losingmyangelgrace



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Bodyswap, M/M, Male Slash, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-25
Updated: 2013-06-25
Packaged: 2017-12-16 02:41:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/856824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/losingmyangelgrace/pseuds/losingmyangelgrace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When being beamed back aboard the Enterprise after a successful mission Jim and Spock learn that spikes in ion levels can have some unfortunate consequences.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Body Swap

**Author's Note:**

> For 'doctopus', who turned 17 today, I hope it's been a good one :)

Spock stood next to Jim as he watched the rest of the away team beam back to the ship suspended thousands of miles above them outside the planet’s atmosphere. They’d come to this planet to collect botanical samples, it had been quite a stressful mission with the ionic levels in the outer atmosphere spiking erratically, meaning that they had to be careful when they transported between the ship and the planet’s surface. They’d found a stable window though and now, nine hours later, they were headed back home.

 

He had to admit though, that despite the worry coming here had caused, he’d enjoyed the short time on the planet’s surface. The air was breathable so they’d been cleared to come down without the specialised respiring apparatus they carried aboard the ship and it had been wonderful to be able to breathe actual air again. After three years aboard the Enterprise without any shore leave he was sick of the stale, recycled air that they had to breathe. Coupled with the planets near tropical conditions it had been a very pleasant time sitting basking in the sun with his lover, Doctor McCoy, Uhura and Doctor Marcus once they had the samples and were waiting around for another window of opportunity to be beamed back aboard.

 

“Are you clear, Captain?” he heard Scotty say through Jim’s comm unit.

 

“Beam us up Scotty,” Jim replied.

 

The white beams started to surround Spock, and he became momentarily blinded with the white light as he felt his atoms being redistributed during the transfer. It was a strange sensation to get used to but he now found it pleasant after so many years of going through it. He felt himself being pulled back together again, the white disappeared and he was staring into the transporter room of the ship but something was different.

 

Spock felt strange, emotionally compromised yet stunted at the same time. It was an odd feeling and he couldn’t understand what had happened, had something gone wrong during the transfer? He blinked a few time, noting that his eye lids felt heavier than usual and his hearing was somehow diminished. Normally, he could hear the Enterprise, as her engines sang around him but now all he could pick up was a low hum. Alarm started to course through him.

 

“Are you okay Jim?” Doctor McCoy asked. Spock looked up and saw that, strangely, the doctor was looking towards him.

 

“I feel strange, Bones,” said his Captain from the adjacent transporter pad. There was something wrong with his voice, the cadences were his but the pitch, the tenor was different.

 

“I didn’t ask you Spock,” McCoy frowned causing the alarm Spock was feeling to tinge with worry as he tried to placate the doctor by saying, “I know you did not address me Leonard.”

 

There was something wrong with his voice, just like there was Jim’s, his manner of speaking was the same but the tone, the pitch, it was different.

 

“Okay, okay,” McCoy snorted, “Pranks over. Seriously though, are you two okay? Jim?”

 

“Prank? What are you talking about?” Jim asked, the look on McCoy’s face made him turn slowly as dread seeped through him. He gasped at what he saw, not the Captain, not the blue eyes and blonde hair, yellow shirt he was expecting but instead he saw _himself_.

 

He saw his black hair, his dark eyes and pointed ears. “This is not possible,” Spock muttered, tearing his eyes away from _himself_ to look down at himself. Sure enough he was wearing a yellow shirt. He raised his hands and saw Jim’s. “This is not possible,” he repeated again.

 

His emotions, why they felt so different, humans felt emotions with a different intensity to Vulcan’s and now that he was in a human body his nervous system was reacting to them differently to what he was used to. They coursed through him with each beat of his very human heart; he pulled his sleeve up and stared at the visible blue veins, his veins, Jim’s veins. It was all very confusing.

 

What was most bewildering though was that his emotions were inside of him, purely _inside_ of him, they weren’t projected on his skin anymore. He would be able to touch a person now and just feel there skin, not what they were feeling, and there would be no chance of them discovering was he was feeling, as there wouldn’t be any transfer. He swayed slightly under that thought, he felt closed off yet so open all at once.

 

“Oh my God,” his own voice said, but it was Jim’s words. He turned his head and saw that he, that Jim, was looking at him, his eyes wide as he stared at himself. “What the hell happened?”

 

“I do not know,” he answered, shaking his head.

 

“Err…I think I do,” Scotty spoke, standing up from behind the console he’d been seated at when locking onto the away team’s positions.

 

“Well then, come one man!” McCoy demanded, looking severely rattled by the whole situation.

 

“During the time it took for you to be transported between the planet’s surface and her lady, the ion levels in the atmosphere spiked and now…” he gestured to the two men helplessly.

 

The doctor then swung into action, his tricorder materializing in his hand as he first scanned over Spock’s body, pressing his comm as he did so, “Chapel to McCoy,” he barked, “I need you in the transporter room, now.”

 

“ _What are we looking at?”_ her voice replied, slightly tinny.

 

“You’re not gonna believe it till you see it,” he replied, “McCoy out.” Finished scanning, he then looked down at the readings the machine was giving to him, his frown deepening. He turned to Spock then, and started scanning the Captain’s body.

 

Despite what was happening to them, as ever, Jim was thinking of other’s, seeming to take the fact he was in Spock’s body in his stride. Spock held a few more qualms, “What are we going to do?” he asked, his voice betraying the panic he was feeling.

 

“It’ll be fine,” Jim said, waving Spock’s own hand at him, “Scotty and Bones will sort it out, won’t you?”

 

“Well we don’t know how to reverse it yet…” Scotty trailed off, “but we’ll find out!” he added as an afterthought while McCoy just remained silent, still scanning Spock, his face stoic apart from the deep frown furrowing his forehead.

 

Jim had walked over to where Uhura and Doctor Marcus had been standing, watching the proceedings wide eyes. “Are you two okay?” he asked, always putting others first despite the strange situation they were in. The two women nodded and Jim reached out to grip their bare arms.

 

“No!” Spock cried but it was too late, the palms of Spock’s body made contact with the girl’s skin and Jim cried out, wrenching his hands away like he’d been burned. Which, in a way he had, considering he was unused to emotional transfer and had no shields against it.

 

“What was that?!” Jim asked, the shock evident in his voice. He was cradling Spock’s hands to his chest.

 

“You just experienced a transfer of Uhura and Doctor Marcus’ emotions, what they were feeling conveyed through to you via my hands. I recommend that you try to avoid touching anybody else while you are in my body,” Spock advised, stepping down from the transporter pad when McCoy had finished scanning him.

 

Nurse Chapel then entered, with a medikit slung over her shoulder, “Who’s injured?” she asked, looking around at everybody.

 

“I don’t think injured is really the word for it,” Scotty uttered, looking between Spock and Jim, “it’s more…how would you describe the situation?”

 

“It’s like Freaky Friday,” Jim verbalized. Spock remembered that film, Jim had made him watch it just over a year ago, he hadn’t found it particularly interesting then but he could see the comparison now.

 

“I don’t understand,” Chapel frowned, looking towards the two other women, female solidarity and all.

 

Uhura sighed and explained, “When the Captain and Spock were beamed up from the planet, there was some interference and well…Spock’s in the Captain’s body and Jim’s in Spock’s.”

 

The head nurse looked around as if everyone had gone mad and stared between the two aforementioned men and Uhura. “That’s not possible…surely?”

 

“Apparently it is,” Jim laughed, lifting his hands to touch Spock’s ears…”Ooo, pointy.”

 

Spock raised his eyebrows, or more so, Jim’s eyebrows. Jim loved his ears, he told him so frequently. It would be different he supposed though, touching something like it was your own rather than touching another person’s body.

 

“Look at these tricorder reading’s would you Christine?” McCoy asked, handing the instrument over to her. She read them carefully, biting her lip as she did so. “How odd,” she frowned.

 

“What’s odd?” Jim asked, but was pointedly ignored while the two medical personal discussed the readings on the apparatus. Jim didn’t like being ignored, “Spill, Bones, you’re killing me here with all of the evasive talk,” he whined with an edge of his ‘Captain’ voice, making Spock smile.

 

Doctor McCoy looked up, “With what’s happened, you’d expect there to be _something_ showing up in your readings. Higher levels of certain isotopes caused by the spike in ionization or the over production of an enzyme or a hormone that we could then track to try and understand what’s happened, hopefully reverting it but…there’s nothing. Both your bodies are preposterously normal despite the fact that you’re in the wrong damned ones.”

 

Spock raised an eyebrow at the doctor, “What is going to be done about it?”

 

“Well for starter’s we’re taking the two of you down to sickbay for further testing, if that comes up with nothing then Scotty and I will spend some time studying the radiation that fills the outer atmosphere of the planet…maybe you can help Doctor Marcus, I’m sure we could use your skills and knowledge,” the southern man turned a wry grin on the female Doctor, making Nurse Chapel roll her eyes, much to Spock’s amusement.

 

“You’re not gonna let me on the Bridge until I’m back in my own body are you?” Jim asked exasperatedly.

 

“No,” the doctor concluded.

 

Spock could see Jim drawing breath to argue so he cut in before he had the chance, “I believe it is for the best, Jim, Mister Sulu will be able to take the chair while we are indisposed.”

 

Jim sucked in a breathe, and Spock heard it whistle back out through his own teeth, but only barely, the human ears not as good as his own Vulcan ones. “I suppose,” Jim said, his mouth turning down unhappily.

 

Spock knew that Jim wasn’t against Sulu being the Acting Captain, he just didn’t like sitting around for long periods of time doing nothing. Within the hour the man would be so bored he’d be practically climbing the walls, and Spock decided that he’d have to teach Jim how to put himself into a meditative state, so that if he could dream lucidly while waiting for the crew to figure out how to place them back in their rightful bodies. “Shall we head to sickbay?” Spock asked.

 

“Yeah, yes, of course,” McCoy muttered, “come on Jim, don’t make me hypo ya’ to get you down there.”

 

“Uhura when you go back up to the Bridge tell Sulu he gets to keep my seat warm,” Jim ordered as he walked past her, she nodded in response, staring at him wide eyed.

 

Following them out of the room, Spock stopped when he was level with Uhura and he turned to her, hoping that what he was about to ask wouldn’t be too much. “This may be a strange request,” he started, “but…could you please touch my face? I would like to experience how it feels.”

 

“Of course,” she answered. He could see the internal battle she was currently under. Her mind was telling her that she was looking at Jim, which she was but only in a purely aesthetic way. He could see the struggle she was facing at grasping that she was indeed speaking to Spock and not the captain.

 

Hesitantly, she raised a shaking hand and pressed her palm against his cheek. Spock could feel it, the weight against the skin, the warmth, but there was no emotion. The lack of it made him moan, such pure beauty to be able to touch without feeling, to simply take solace in sensation without being overwhelmed by the emotions that the other person was feeling. He leaned into Uhura’s palm, another low noise coming from the back of his throat.

 

Someone coughed from behind him and he turned, feeling a blush creep up onto Jim’s cheeks, another strange yet pleasant sensation, heat under the skin. He turned to find that Jim was staring at him, he could see the jealousy the Captain was feeling in his own eyes. It was bizarre.

 

Spock walked over to himself, “Sorry,” he murmured to Jim. He wanted to touch the man, to show Jim what he felt when he touched him, to show him what it was like to be able to _feel_ the love that they shared but he held back. Wanting to do it in a more private setting as he remembered his own response to when he first felt the entirety of Jim’s love for him, it was heady thing.

 

“It’s fine,” Jim replied tightly as they followed McCoy down to sickbay, Nurse Chapel bringing up the rear.

 

Along the way the crew stopped and saluted the Captain, only to be confused when Spock’s body answered, there was a lot of “I’ll explain later” and “Just roll with it” being issued every time Jim told someone to carry one with their work. Finally they reached the quiet confines of sickbay and McCoy made them lie down on separate beds as he and Chapel started taking blood samples and testing response times.

 

“Everything’s really loud,” Jim commented, running his index finger over Spock’s ears while Christine scraped a skin sample from the back of his leg.

 

“My bodies’ hearing is more acute than yours Jim,” Spock reminded him, looking over McCoy’s shoulder as he tested the knee reflexes on Jim’s body. “About before,” Spock started, what had happened with Uhura in the transporter room had been nagging at him ever since but he knew that if Jim touched him using his own body then it wouldn’t be the same, there would still be some emotional transfer even if it would be less than being in his own Vulcan skin.

 

“It’s fine Spock,” Jim said through gritted teeth.

 

“I merely wish for you to understand,” he pushed.

 

“Fine, go on.”

 

“When I asked Uhura to touch my face, it was not in as sexual or sentimental gesture,” he felt McCoy shift awkwardly but he continued on anyway, “I merely wanted to know what it felt like to be touched by another being and not feel the emotional weight, like I have done throughout my entire life. I reacted the way I did because the sheer nothingness of it was so different for me, so intoxicating, I couldn’t seem to control my reaction as I normally would.”

 

He watched Jim think over what he’d just said. “I understand,” he finally stated, “…I think.”

 

“I want you to know that there was no need to be jealous.”

 

“I wasn’t jealous,” he snorted. Spock merely raised his eyebrows.

 

**

 

Hours later when McCoy couldn’t find any anomaly in either Jim or Spock he let them leave sickbay, telling them to go straight back to their quarters but only after he’d watch both of them eat a simple dinner. Jim complaining about the lack of taste the whole time, demanding that he be given something with meat in it, McCoy denied him though, much to Spock’s approval. Just because Jim was wearing his body didn’t mean he had a right to decide what went in it.

 

The whole time they’d been in the medical centre Jim had been restless, fidgeting the whole time and not even trying to descend into the meditative state that Spock gave him instruction for. When they did finally leave, Jim was agitated and in a foul mood, even when they reached the Captain’s quarter’s and he was able to collapse onto his own bed. Spock couldn’t help but wince when his body made a resounding thump against the mattress.

 

“Could you please be more careful with _me_ ,” Spock asked as he stood at the end of the bed, toeing off Jim’s boots.

 

“Sorry,” Jim muttered, not sounding sorry at all. “This is so weird,” he commented, throwing an arm over his face to cover his eyes against the lights.

 

Spock sat down lightly on the bed next to him, “I want to show you something.”

 

“What?” he didn’t look up.

 

“Sit up Jim,” Spock instructed.

 

He did as asked, “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to looking at myself.”

 

“Well hopefully you won’t have too. Now hold out your hands, palm’s facing up,” Spock asked. Jim groused about it but complied. “Just…prepare yourself.”

 

“What?” Jim frowned, Spock watched in fascination as his own brow creased, “Why?”

 

“Trust me,” he couldn’t help but grin as the anticipation for what he was about to do set in.

 

Slowly he raised his own hands and held them palm down over Jim’s, conjuring every good thought, every scrap of love he’d felt towards the man to the surface, let himself brim with it, the joy, the care, the adoration, everything, before he slowly lowered his hands, pressing his palms against Jim’s and wrapping his fingers around his wrists.

 

Jim gasped sharply as he breathing became ragged, but he didn’t pull away, he just wrapped Spock’s fingers around his own wrists and bowed Spock’s head over their joined hands. “Spock,” he whispered, his voice breaking, as he looked up, Spock could see the tears forming in his own eyes. “I can,” he broke off, trying to find the right words, “I can feel you.”

 

Spock nodded his head, “Every time I touch you, this is what it feels like, except the emotions come from you but because you are in my body, you can experience just how much you mean to me.”

 

“I always thought we didn’t match,” Jim laughed, a tear falling, “that because of the Vulcan in you I cared for you more then you for me but…I was wrong, clearly. It’s beautiful Spock. It’s like I can see it.”

 

“Yes, yes!” Spock exclaimed, leaning forward to rest Jim’s forehead against that of his own. At the further touch, Jim gasped again as Spock’s love for him continued to pulse through his body, completely exposed as he had no shield, overwhelming him as another few tears leaked from his eyes. Spock couldn’t help but note in a detached way just how strange it was to see himself cry but he still revelled in the emotions that were passing through the emotional barrier from Jim to himself and from himself to Jim.

 

They stayed like that for a long time, Jim continuing to shed tears as he was overcome by the emotions he was feeling.

 

“So,” Jim said after a while, “It would be beyond weird to technically have sex with myself, right?”

 

Spock laughed, a chuckled deep in his throat at made Jim smile as the amusement passed through to him via there still conjoined hands. “I believe so, yes.”

 

“Damn,” he mumbled, hilarity still colouring his tone though.

 

Without taking any queue from his lover, Spock leaned forward and gently pressed Jim’s lips to his own. His lips were soft but dry and not what he was expecting. Jim’s body responded in a very base human way, the nerves around his mouth going into overdrive as they carried impulses to the pleasure receptors in his brain and started to increase the blood flow to his groin. A kiss that was supposed to be soft, short and sweet turned long and lingering when Jim let go of Spock’s hands and cupped his face, holding him to him as he slipped his tongue into his own mouth.

 

The strangeness of the situation deserted them as they felt the desire they held for one another. The want, the need, it was overpowering. Spock pushed Jim down onto the bed, intent on what he was about to do, what he wanted to make Jim feel. Unhurried, he tugged the blue vest up, taking the black undershirt with it as he felt his own smooth skin. He’d thought that this would be a lot more difficult but the differences between his and Jim’s hands meant that his own skin felt different to him.

 

Jim leaned far enough up to allow Spock to lift the clothing the rest of the way up and over his head, he then continued to lavish the pale skin, kissing, nipping and licking, everything he knew Jim liked, the intensity ramped up tenfold by the power of the emotional transference. Spock knew what this would be like for Jim, and he wanted him to experience it all while they had this unique opportunity.

 

While slowly kissing his stomach, Spock started to loosen the black trousers when Jim grabbed his wrists, “Spock this is amazing but I don’t want you to be uncomfortable,” he panted.

 

“I want you to feel what I feel,” he replied simply, continuing with what he was doing before Jim could say anything else.

 

He pulled the black trousers down deliberately slow, grazing each bit of newly exposed thigh with the stubble growing on Jim’s jawline, making him squirm. Spock left the trousers sitting just below the other man’s knees and raised himself up, throwing an arm over his hips to stop him from bucking to hard upwards before he started to mouth the hardness through his underwear, the soft cotton the only barrier between them as he kissed the heavy heat of his, of Jim’s, erection, making his lover squirm and pant.

 

Still mouthing him through the material Spock grasped his own hand with Jim’s, letting him feel the desire Spock felt towards him, making Jim go still as his name fell from Jim’s lips and a warm wetness spread out from under the fabric.

 

“Spock I’m so sorry,” Jim said quickly, “when you touched my hand…I don’t know what happened.”

 

Spock smiled, he had expected this. “The most sensitive part of a Vulcan’s body is the hand,” he explained, “It is okay, Jim, it is, really. I was expecting that to happen.”

 

He moved back up then, to hover over his own face, seeing Jim clearly shine from his own dark eyes. “I’m pretty hot, aren’t I?” Jim queried, looking his own face over.

 

“Quite,” Spock snorted, leaning down to kiss Jim on the lips, opening his mouth to allow Jim to press Spock’s tongue against his own gently. Spock rocked Jim’s hips downwards, the erection pressing against tight against the black trousers. “What do you want me to do?” Jim breathed as they broke apart.

 

Listening to the base instincts of the body, Spock murmured, “I want to be inside of you.”

 

Jim nodded and pressed Spock’s lips against his own with bruising force, the anticipation to what he was going to feel exciting his already spent nerves. As they continued to kiss Jim reached down in between them and cupped Spock through his black trousers, causing Spock to rut Jim’s hips into his own even harder. With slightly shaking hands, Jim began to un-pop the buttons on the pants before pulling down the zipper and hooking his fingers under the band of his own boxer’s, skimming Spock’s knuckles over the soft skin there.

 

“Scott to Kirk.”

 

They stopped, Spock pulling back to look down into the lust filled dark eyes below him.

 

“Scott to Kirk.”

 

“Dammit!” Jim muttered, sitting up and pushing Spock off of him so they were lying next to each other. Jim slid Spock’s hand into his own trouser pocket and pulled his communicator out, flipping it open with more malice then was necessary, “Kirk here, what do you want Scotty?”

 

“We, er,” he said hesitantly, able to hear the extreme irritation in the Captain’s voice, “We think we’ve found a way to reverse what’s happened.”

 

“So get your asses down to engineering,” they heard McCoy call from somewhere on Scotty’s side of the comm.

 

Spock looked at the clocked sitting on the bedside table, it was late, both Scotty and McCoy should have clocked off shift more than two hours ago. He leaned forward and said into the communicator, “I realize that you must have made the transference of the Captain and I your top priority, and we thank you but there was no need for you to work past your scheduled hours.”

 

That was when they heard Carol pipe up in the background, “We’ve interrupted them having sex, haven’t we?”

 

Jim groaned and pinched the bridge of Spock’s nose, quickly saying, “We’ll be down in five minutes, Kirk out,” before slamming the comm closed. “That man has the worst timing in the world!”

 

“Quite,” Spock agreed, looking down at the visible erection.

 

Jim followed his gaze and Spock heard him moan low in the back of his throat. Spock looked at Jim, “I shall take a cold shower.”

 

“Shower!” Jim exclaimed brightly, “You are a genius Spock! Seriously, I don’t tell you enough, and we get to kill two birds with one stone.”

 

“What?” Spock frowned.

 

“I can get cleaned up _and_ I can bring you off,” he smiled slyly as he kicked the trousers all of the way off before grabbing his own hand, gasping as all of the lust, love and desire Spock was feeling that surged into him. He tugged Spock off of the bed, pulling him into the bathroom. “Shower, 27 degrees,” Jim ordered as he helped Spock pull his clothes off, only taking off his own underwear when Spock was naked.

 

Together they entered the small cubicle, the closeness only adding to the intimacy of the whole situation while the water covered their bear bodies. Spock watched as Jim grabbed one of the bottles of body wash off of the high shelf in the cubicle and squirted a dollop into his hand, rubbing them together until a thick lather had formed. Then he stepped forwards and Spock’s eyes fluttered closed, his back pressing against the cool tiles as he felt lips press against his.

 

He moaned when Jim began to touch him with sure confident movements, one hand stroking him and the other pressed against his hip, Jim rubbing his thumb over the visible bone. There was only he and Jim as the hand began to pick up speed in its movement’s, occasionally twisting or changing the amount of pressure used.

 

When Jim lowered the hand from Spock’s hip to gently squeeze and massage his balls Spock came. Spurting hard and fast into the hand stroking him, his head falling to rest on his own shoulder as his whispered, “James.” Jim also let out a strangled cry, feeling the full force of the orgasm just as Spock was, thanks the emotional transfer.

 

They stood for a few moments, leaning against each other and breathing heavily. “That was…” Jim trailed off and Spock knew he was trying to search for words to describe what had just happened, from experience though, Spock new that there were no words.

 

“We had best get cleaned up,” he said, carding his fingers through his own dark hair. “They’ll be expecting us.”

 

“I suppose,” Jim agreed half-heartedly but even so, he stepped back and reached for the body wash again.

 

Despite being in a hurry it didn’t stop them enjoying their time together in the shower, washing each other’s bodies and just delighting in the complexities of the emotions that they shared. Jim always keeping a firm hand somewhere on Spock’s body so he could continue to feel whatever emotion were passing through his lover as he felt it.

 

Thirty five minutes after they entered the shower they arrived in engineering, their fingers intertwined, it wasn’t something that they would normally do outside the confines of the captain’s quarter’s but Jim had argued that he wanted to feel the intimacies of their relationship the same way that Spock did for as long as possible and that time was limited if Scotty actually had figured out how to put them back in the right body which, knowing the Scotsman, he had. When they walked over to Doctor’s McCoy and Marcus, their blue uniform’s standing out amongst the sea of red; Leonard raised an eyebrow at their conjoined hands but thankfully didn’t comment.

 

Scotty then chose that moment to come bounding over from around the side of the warp core. “Captain, Spock,” he acknowledged both of them. “Follow me.”

 

He proceeded to walk off. Sharing a bewildered look, the pair followed, the Doctor’s trailing behind them. “From what we learned from the ions surrounding the planet,” Scotty spoke over his shoulder as he led them through the massive bay, “they didn’t actually harm you, just muddled your atoms up a little.”

 

“That’s not really very comforting, Scotty,” Jim said, pulling Spock’s forehead into a frown as he stared at the back of the Scotsman’s red shirt.

 

“What I’m trying to say,” Mister Scott said in an exasperated tone, like it should have been obvious, “is that if we transport you again, while also exposing you to the ions, then, fingers crossed, you should end up back in your proper body.”

 

“How did you come to this conclusion?” Spock asked.

 

“Bit of atom splitting, bit of data collecting and research, you know, the usual,” he shrugged as he stopped in front of a large glass chamber that Spock was pretty wasn’t there the last time he’d been in engineering.

 

“And a lot of guess work,” Leonard muttered under his breath from behind them.

 

“I heard that,” Jim groused, turning to glare at his friend, “Way to fill me with confidence, Bones.”

 

“I know you like knowing all of the variables,” he shrugged, “sue me.”

 

Jim continued to glare at the doctor for a moment longer before turning back and addressing Scotty, “Where did that even come from?” he asked, gesturing towards the glass compartment.

 

“Well I had some of the lads knock it together,” he beamed proudly, “and I installed some of our ladies spare transporter pads. So, from the little panel on the side I’ll just transport you to the other’s pad, and while you’re in the process of putting all of your atoms back together I can flood the compartment with the negatively charged ions that surround the planet. Then once you’re back together, I’ll release a load of protons to stabilize the area for you.” 

 

“There are so many things that can go wrong with that plan,” Jim said, shaking his head.

 

Spock turned to the Doctor’s while Jim and Scotty continued to argue over his Scotsman’s methods. “Do either of you have the specs that Mister Scott is working with?” he asked.

 

“Oh, yes,” Carol indicated, bending down to ease her index finger and thumb into her boot, straightening up with the smallest PADD currently available clutched in between them. She turned to look up at Leonard, who was staring at her opened mouthed. “What?” she asked him, tapping away at the small handheld before handing it over to Spock.

 

“Thank you,” he acknowledged as he looked over the data. Spock thought it over, waging all of the variables, the human brain moving much too slowly for him. After thinking through every possibility he came to a conclusion. “Jim,” he said, sending a wave of tenderness through their still joined hands to grab his lover’s attention.

 

“Yes, Spock?” the Captain asked, turning to face himself.

 

“I believe that Mister Scott’s idea may be the only way,” Spock explained, “They have exhausted the information that they were able to find and discover. We should trust Montgomery’s judgement on this, if it was too dangerous he would not have suggested it in the first place.”

 

“Exactly!” Scotty called triumphantly.

 

“Are you sure, Spock?” Jim asked, squeezing his hand.

 

“Absolutely,” he replied, increasing the amount of trust he felt towards Scotty so that Jim would be able to feel the faith he held towards the idea.

 

Jim nodded resolutely, “Okay.”

 

Scotty beamed. “Step this way then,” he instructed leading them towards the glass chamber. He typed a code into the keys set into the side and a door they couldn’t even see unsealed itself, showing them the entrance. Stepping inside, they each stood on a transporter pad and Spock let go of Jim’s hand so as he didn’t feel the increasing tension worming its way through his body.

 

“It’ll be over in a jiffy,” Scotty assured them, “You ready?” They both nodded. “Okay then, let’s get this show on the road,” the Scotsman said, with more excitement then was probably allowed for the situation at hand. He started tapping away at the keypad, a look of stern concentration crossing his face. The beams started to enclose around Spock until all he could see was whiteness and he went through the usual feeling of his entire atomic structure being shattered and then put back together again.

 

A fleeting amount of time later the white started to recede and he was standing, staring out of the glass chamber, taking in the worried expressions of the Doctor’s. “Did it work?” Doctor Marcus asked.

 

Without even looking around Spock answered, “Yes.”

 

He knew, from his ability to hear the Enterprise once again singing around him rather than the dull hum that only human ears detected, to the way he could feel his emotions sitting under his skin. Spock was back in his own body and he wasn’t sure how he actually felt about it. He’d enjoyed being in Jim’s body, revelled in seeing Jim feel things the way he did. Nevertheless though, when he turned and was greeted by Jim’s beautiful smile, he felt glad to be home and inside of himself once again, he couldn’t spend his life only being able to look at the face he’d fallen in love with by standing in front of a mirror.

 

“I feel very…closed off,” Jim told him as Scotty unsealed the chamber.

 

“I’m sure you’ll get used to,” Spock replied, holding his hand out for Jim, who took it with a smile.

 

As soon as their skin touched Spock felt Jim’s love for him brush up against his shields. As they left the glass box, now in their own bodies, he couldn’t stop the grin that stretched his lips because now, now Jim understood just how Spock felt things and he knew, with all of his half-human, half-Vulcan heart that the whole experience will have drawn them even closer together than ever before.


End file.
